


Three on a Match

by teenagewristband



Category: Common Law (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Melancholy, Sexual Content, Small Fandom Fest, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 13:22:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7642249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teenagewristband/pseuds/teenagewristband
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were happy once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three on a Match

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Small Fandom Fest 19. There seem to be some discrepancies between the Pilot ep and Gun, so I manipulated those to suit my whim. This fic has the sads, but I feel like the prompt sort of did too, so...

Wes flinches. It's not the first time or the twentieth time, more like the one thousandth. Travis doesn't want to think that, even now he can't really think his lover's name much less say it, but it's hard to ignore the elephant in the room. Even though he will never be 'in the room' again. Will never touch either of them again. Will never be with them again. 

Paekman use to joke that he was the glue that held everything together. Travis doesn't want to believe that that's true. Yes, David Paek introduced him to Wesley Mitchell, but he and Wes have built a relationship with each other on their own, anchored in the skidrow murders that got them into Robbery Homicide. They are scary effective at work, or they were, before the plate glass. Now he and Wes are in work related therapy. When Paekman found out he laughed for twenty minutes. Travis wants to believe it's a fluke that the more Paekman became enmeshed with SIS, the more he and Wes started bickering. 

 

This nightmare might be bearable if Wes would just allow Travis to touch him, hold him but he won't. He hasn't, not since their lover was murdered. 

 

It's a statement of fact that Travis has had experience with all kinds of people, but that first night with Wes and Paekman had been....

Travis understood a month into the relationship that that whole night at the shooting range, had been a set-up. A meet-cute. Paekman had wanted him to meet Wes and picked a place where it would seem less like a set-up. The lure had been their shared theory on the serial killer case, the snare, how unexpectedly arousing Paekman and Wes had been together.

Wes, especially, had been kind of a revelation. It had started so benignly. After the shooting range, Paekman suggested they all go out for drinks and the detective, even though he'd been introduced to Wes and knew his name, the first moments after he was introduced he could only think of him as detective tight ass.  
That's how uptight his vibe was. 

Back at the hotel room, later that night even when they were discussing the murders, detective tight ass had still been a little standoffish, hesitant, same as at the range. Then Paekman had gotten up to get more beer out of the suite's mini fridge, flopped down on the couch beside Wes, and without warning, at least to Travis, placed a bone melting kiss on the new acquaintance.

It had been something to behold. The same good humor and personality Paek exhibited everyday transferred gloriously to sex. Detective tight ass became so pliant it was like a kind of sexual split personality. Under Paekman's mouth, and then his hand as it undid Wes' belt, all of the rigidity in Wes' body disappeared. At his soft gasp of _Paek_ Travis wondered if that was his cue to leave. 

 

As if reading his mind, Paekman had pulled his mouth away from Wes', while his hand continued to deftly unbutton and unizp the other man's pants. With the fine hairs exposed through the open fly, he'd smirked and begun stroking Wes. 

“Enjoying the show, Marks?”

“Show me what you got, Paekman?”  


The relationship with Paekman had always been bantering, a little flirtatious, but non-sexual, until now. Travis had thought maybe it was because Paekman was better at not shitting where he ate than Travis, but maybe it had been because Paekman and the prickly detective were together. Together, but willing to play apparently. Travis had no objections to play. Settling in to watch 'the show', he'd slid his hand into his pants to adjust himself.

That night he learned the most effective way to move Wes out of his moods. He learned that post-coital, Wes was sleepy, affectionate, loose. He learned that Paekman liked to watch. 

One of Paekman's hands carded through the short strands of Wes' hair as he dozed on his shoulder. 

“Your turn.” Paekman winked as he licked Wes' release from his other hand. 

 

It had been tough to keep himself from going off during the 'show', but Travis hadn't wanted to miss a minute in case it was the last time he was extended the invitation. With his friend's eyes heavy lidded and hot on his skin, it only took a couple of strokes before Travis moaned _Paekman_ and shot all over his own hand. After, long after, when it had been agreed that Travis would stay the night because there might have been a little too much alcohol in his system to take the risk, and Paekman had gone home because he shared a home with his mother who didn't like being in the house at night by herself, that Travis realized Paekman hadn't come. 

 

The next morning, Travis woke on the suite's couch to the annoyance of Wes poking him in the shoulder with an insistent finger.

“You need to get up.” 

The semi-pissy attitude from the night before was back, but Travis had already seen behind the curtain so it had zero affect. Instead of getting up, he reached out and stroked his hand against the front of Wes' boxer's briefs. Wes' cock twitched beneath his hand. 

“Maybe you need to get up.” He stroked once more and the corners of Wes mouth lifted in an almost smile.

“Get up Marks we have a serial killer to catch.”

After he, Paekman and Wes started rocking the friends with benefits on the regular, Travis hadn't felt the urge to venture out on dates or have sex with other people. He was satisfied. It was the best of any world, every world Travis could have imagined. 

***************

They should be leaning on each other now, but instead they are falling apart.

Travis takes a step toward Wes who holds up his hand to ward him off. Wes also steps behind the sofa so that there is a physical barrier between them. It stops Travis in his tracks. It's physically painful to have to stop like that. This is so much worse than the flinching, when everything about Wes' body language, says that he wants to be touched. That he needs the comfort. Hunched shoulders, bowed head, trembling. Travis is certain that he's also crying. Before he can fully act of his decision to climb over the the couch to get to his partner anyway...

“That morning I told him I wanted to stop.”

The quiet of the words, belie their force. They hit Travis like he's been punched in the stomach. 

“You were going to break up with us?” 

The trembling becomes more pronounced as Wes shakes his head in the negative. 

“No, not both of you.”

***************

At the funeral, Paekman's mom sits between them. It is both necessary and awful. He and Wes arrived separately at her house this morning to accompany her to the service. No one outside of their three was aware of the scope of the relationship so while they are able to comfort Mrs. Paek, they aren't able to really express their loss truthfully. Or he isn't. 

Wes wasn't in love with Paek so he's probably fine, Travis thinks bitterly. Even as this thought flows through, he knows it's wrong, but there isn't anything he can do about it. He's still haunted by the idea of Paekman bleeding out, alone in the parking lot of some sketchy check cashing place after Wes had tried to break up with him. Even if his customary optimism had let Paekman believe he could get Wes to change his mind, the last words he'd been left with from Wes weren't loving. 

Subpoenaed to testify in a narcotics case, Travis wasn't able to see either of his boyfriends before Paekman started his undercover assignment. Prior to Wes' revelation, Travis had assumed and been eased by the belief Wes and Paekman had spent some part of the night and morning together, that Paek had gotten the right kind of send-off which probably would have been Wes on his knees. They hadn't known how long he was going to be under, so that little slice of home might have to go a long way. 

The sorrow inside wants to claw its way out of Travis' chest. He grips Mrs. Paek's hand more tightly, praying that he can keep it together until after the service. Mrs. Paek delays his escape by asking him to come back to the house. She asks Wes as well. They barely look at each other when they nod yes. 

***************

 

Wes has never had an issue with claustrophobia, but the walls of the Paek home feel like they are inches away from his skin even though he is standing in the center of the living room. The three of them had never been here together. Mostly, they'd gotten together at the hotel. Once, they had tried the trailer. After nearly throwing out his back from the contortions they had to make to accommodate three grown men in Travis' 'bedroom', Wes vowed never again, but Paek and Travis had still hooked up there. There are a couple of short videos on Wes' phone that he should have deleted immediately, but he couldn't bring himself to do so. They were stunning. Maybe those videos, taken from Paekman's point of view are part of why this has happened.

 

Sweat beads on his forehead and trickles underneath the collar of his dress shirt. He has no idea where Travis disappeared to after they got inside the house. They both stayed firmly anchored on either side of Mrs. Paek, but once back the house, Travis offered to make her a plate. 

 

Minutes later, a few of their colleagues approached her wanting to share funny stories about Paekman giving Wes a chance to step away. Then the walls started crowding. After one more glance around the living room to verify no one is actually paying attention to him, he makes his escape.

 

***************

 

“What made you think I would go along? Why would I let you break up with him? How could something like that even cross your mind?”

Unexpected and ragged, the barrage of questions hit Wes as soon as he stepped into the room he deduced was Paekman's. After weeks of not speaking to each other it's sort of a relief to be spoken to directly, even though the tone makes him want to back out of the room. Squaring his shoulders up, he steps fully into the room instead, locks the door. 

Travis is sitting at Paekman's desk. Red rimmed eyes bore into Wes. It's not a weight he can bear. Breaking the intense eye contact, he leans against the bedroom door for support. 

 

It's not like the question hadn't crossed his mind. He hadn't actually figured out how to deal with it before that terrible morning or since. 

“I wasn't going to, it just sort of came out,” he offers.

“How does something like that just _come out_?”

“You'd been on my mind. Maybe because of therapy or maybe because you're my work partner and the man I sleep with, when we're done for the day, at the end of the day I think about us hanging out, then going back to the hotel or the trailer.”

“You hate the trailer.”

“Yeah, but not in my daydreams, my dreams we close a case, then grab something off the food truck. We go to the trailer, we eat. We one up each other about who was most integral to pitting the case down. Then we're naked, kissing. Then you're inside me and when I come I'm not thinking about anyone but you. For six months.”

“It's the high of the case. The adrenaline.”

“I thought that at first, except I also think about what kind of dad you'd be if we had kids.”

Without warning Travis is on his feet.

“Stop talking Wes.”  


“I didn't mean to fall in love with you, Travis.”

Travis doesn't stop moving until he's out of the Paek house and back on his bike. The ride home is a blur. He doesn't remember stopping at any lights or stop signs. He says a small prayer that he didn't hit anyone or anything, but that's the level of messed up he is right now. The irony is that Paekman would know how to bring him down from this. Briefly, he considers Dr. Ryan, but there's so much he would need to tell her to get her up to speed. He's not equipped for that right now.

“SHIT.” He kicks the bike's front tire before dragging himself into the trailer. 

***************

“I'm disappointed that neither one of you felt like you could be honest with me, but I can help you both navigate your feelings about your friend, his death.”

The snort out of Travis is involuntary. 

“I know you mean well Dr. Ryan, but I don't need help navigating anything about Paekman. And I don't ever want to see Wesley Mitchell again.”

He's already put in for a transfer to the Rampart division. It's where he started. Ambivalence is the emotion that most characterizes his feelings about the transfer, about a great many things lately, but it's the only way he can be fairly certain his path won't cross with Wes'. Maybe there is a twinge of something else. Fear. Fear that if he sees Wes again, it might end bloody. 

***************

Wes has been sitting in Dr. Ryan's office for ten minutes. Ten minutes in silence. There is so much that he thought it would all come out in a spew of words, but now that he's taking advantage of her offer for private sessions the words won't come.

“I - “ and then it does come out, but not in the way he imagined. It's like there is some sort of major malfunction in his tear ducts. “Oh God,” a whisper, then he's crying. All the tears he didn't cry at Paekman's funeral while Paekman's mother held his hand so tightly he lost circulation. 

Rightful tears for the man who saved him when he was floundering after his divorce, for a man he loved and respected without the right to grieve for him properly and openly. Grief that he and Travis should be working through together. 

Another twenty minutes, when the crying jag winds down enough so that he can catch his breath to form words, what comes out is the main thing that's been swirling in his head since Travis transferred to a different division months ago. 

“I don't think I can live without them.”

“I'm here to help you through this Wesley. One day at at time.”

Dr. Ryan agrees that he can't stay at the hotel. Even before what happened she'd been encouraging a move. There are echos of the three of them in every square inch of the space. Days after the funeral he'd lost time, stuck in a memory spiral of the first time with Paekman. 

 

They'd been at the range shooting side by side, but by the time he realized Paekman was no longer firing at the target next to him, his friend was already standing behind him. Although slightly shorter than Wes, he'd lined his mouth up perfectly to murmur in Wes' ear as he palmed the front of Wes' slacks. 

“Maybe we need to try something more tactile.”

It had been Paekman's idea in the first place to come to the range. The last days work with the task force had been rife with one frustrating dead end after another. The blatant and public come on left him speechless, but apparently his body hadn't had that problem. He pressed into Paekman's hand and emptied the rest of his clip. 

When they'd gotten to the hotel, they hadn't even been able to make it to the bedroom. Or at least the couch. The other man had made more than good on the seduction he'd started at the range.

It had been raw, consuming and everything Wes needed to get on top of the twin blows of having his theory of the case completely ignored and losing the anchor of his marriage. Both of those deep disappointments combined to drag him down. Like a drug, the sex had taken him out of himself completely, reducing everything to just the taste of his colleague on his tongue, his firm hands tangled in Wes' hair. Touch starved, he'd become addicted to Paek's hands, his mouth, their skin against skin, then Travis Marks entered the picture. 

 

Wes has been in his new Silverlake craftsman off of Sunset for three months. He deliberately chose a fixer-upper, not just because he was able to negotiate a pretty sweet deal, but because he needed the distraction of the extensive DIY remodeling necessary for the kitchen, second bedroom and yard. 

His current partner is married with kids and very serious about keeping a work life balance. Wes respects that about her, but it also, often leaves him at loose ends at the end of the shift. The house reno and watching more hours than is advisable of HGTV helps some. A couple times, early in the planning stages of what he was going to do with the second bedroom, his mind drifted to the possibility of the room as a nursery, which then buried him under the feelings he was still trying to work his way through with Dr. Ryan.

The yard was a little easier. He gave in to his memories and planted a lemon tree that Paekman mentioned a couple of times he'd like to have. Also an orange tree. Paek's mother hadn't wanted to do anything to alter the family home from the way it had been when Paekman's father was alive. He also plants gladiolus in the garden.

This is his life. Wes is learning to live with it.

***************

“Are you on a stakeout?”

“Maybe.” 

The small smile that graces Travis' face as he ducks his head is everything. Wes hadn't know what kind of reaction his appearance would get. Fortunately, he has blue glads from his garden to clutch more tightly instead of reaching out to trace the outline of Travis' smile. 

“I'll let you have your privacy,” Travis says as he moves to step around Wes. Wes shifts in the same direction. Deliberately. It startles Travis into looking at him. Wes has done a lot of work with Dr. Ryan over the last year. It hadn't started with his relationship with Travis and Paekman. They'd started with his marriage to Alex. 

 

He's come to terms with the reality that he and Travis probably will never be together again. There is a small hope that maybe time will do the work of healing, but it's hard to forget the way Travis looked at him when he'd told him the truth about his last moments with Paekman. The best he's hoping for is to continue healing his own damage so that whoever he's with in the future doesn't get taken down by his unhandled baggage. 

It starts with this first step into Travis' path. Telegraphing what he's going to do, Wes holds his arms open as he steps forward. His ex's eyes widen in surprise, but Travis doesn't make any attempt to get out of Wes' path. 

It's permission, but Wes still proceeds slowly. It's been a year. A traumatic one. His ability to read Travis may no longer be as honed as it once was. 

“I'm sorry,” he says as his arms tighten around the other man. The apology is open ended. He's sorry for whatever Travis needs him to be sorry for. Not in that non apology way people apologize, just with the understanding that there was so much hurt he may never know the whole of it or the full extent of his contribution.

Travis inhales the sweetness of Wes' skin, savors the solid weight of Wes' body against his. He's wearing the same cologne he wore the night Travis met him and holding Wes, being held by him hurts. It still feels like a betrayal to Paekman, especially today, but it doesn't change the fact there's been the ever present ache of also losing Wes running beneath this last year of sorrow for Travis. 

 

Wes' small indulgence is not to let go first. It's the first anniversary of Paekman's death, it makes sense they would both be drawn here. It doesn't mean that will always be true. It may be the last time he's allowed to hold Travis, be held by Travis. 

 

They were happy once. Wes' eyes flick just over Travis' shoulder to Paekman's headstone. If he can see them, Wes hopes Paekman forgives him.


End file.
